just to look at

[youngtug]

Yes, prints, on paper I think. These are photos on glass, maybe slides for a magic lantern.
Quite a market for prints of old pictures, some people are copying photo's off of sites like flickr and printing and selling them on ebay

[youngtug]

Wrote the previous answer in an hurry, just got back. Sylvia, I'm sorry, but it looks a little abrupt over your posting, my apologies, I did see the dates of the prints and they are of the timescale we where thinking of, thankyou.

[Wiggy]

YT, I pointed out these photos to my daughter, the artistic member of the family.

- she says they're hand tinted.  you knew that of course.   

I imagine there would not have been colour photography in them thar days - in which case the hand tinting is also very clever of such minute images.

Whatever, they are a wonderful collection. 

Wiggy   

[youngtug]

There was colour photography before 1900, also it was on glass. Not sure about these, it is not coloured/painted on the surface of the glass, also the quality of the colouring and the detail would be dificult to achieve at such a small scale, would it have been worth it?

[youngtug]

Heres another

[Wiggy]

Good point there YT - though when you see the intricate stuff the Japanese do   'just for the skill and beauty of it' . . . . .    My Daughter could well be wrong - but that was her impression when she saw them.

There's photo of a hanging mobile on the photo thread which is all made of paper by some Japanese expert - tine and intricate and  . . . .  I dunno - just pretty!  No real use!   

[youngtug]

I think these were taken by a visitor to Japan, not Japanese made/photographed, some are from HongKong and Shangai. The fact that my scanning of them is not that good makes them look blotchy, but there not, you can see from the odd one or two that have scanned reasonably well the quality of the picture.

[Wiggy]

What sort of stuff would they have needed to be carrying around to take these photos - what would it be like??  - - -  bet it was bigger than a digi!!!   

They are lovely!

[youngtug]

Here is another, a black and white. Brussles, a European city for a change, there are about a dozen B&Ws, mostly cathedrals in England and europe.